


Putting Memories Away

by apple_pi



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, post-Quest LOTR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-28
Updated: 2009-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apple_pi/pseuds/apple_pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo is nosy, Merry is forgetful, Pippin is unexpectedly wise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Putting Memories Away

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was spurred by two separate things: Marigold's [Tale Challenge 13](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=talechallenge13), in which my prompt for that was to write about Merry's thoughts upon waking in captivity to the orcs. At the time, I couldn't formulate what I wanted to say; I started and then abandoned several ideas, including this one, and finally gave up and sent her something completely unrelated. She was gracious enough to accept it anyway. :-) The second influence on this was Pip_Brandygin's (fantastic) story for Challenge 13, [Nightly Noises](http://www.livejournal.com/users/talechallenge13/8338.html). One simple line spurred me: "[Pippin] let out a small sigh, wishing for the hundredth time that Merry wouldn’t take so much of [his] hurt onto his own shoulders." I began wondering: about assumed responsibility, and resentment, and love and fear and shame. And wouldn't you know it? My challenge fic finally finished itself. :-) So enormous thank yous to Marigold and Pip.
> 
> This could be read as either gen or Merry/Pippin slash.

Faramir had given Frodo a small notebook bound, it seemed, perfectly for hobbit hands, smaller than any other the Ringbearer had found. Frodo also had a silver-point pencil, which could be tucked into a cunning pocket along the spine of the leather-bound book. He carried it with him everywhere, sneaking it out when he thought no-one paid attention and writing down the words of everyone who had played a role in the opposition to the enemy. He was particularly assiduous in following Merry and Pippin around, writing surreptitiously if either dropped so much as a crumb of information about the days after Amon Hen, when the pair had been sundered from Frodo and Samwise.

"Frodo Baggins!" Merry plucked the pencil from his hand.

Frodo stared at him with an irritated expression. "Give it back, Merry," he demanded. The noise and bustle of a feast echoed in the high stone hall around them; Pippin had been trying, for the twentieth or so time, to describe Treebeard's eyes - this time for Beregond, who hastily turned away from this internecine squabble to talk to the squire on his far side.

"I will not." Merry glared at Frodo, and Pippin turned to watch them both, arms crossed over his chest. "If you want to know what happened to Pippin and me, why don't you just use the brains in your head and ask us?"

"I feel as though I'm being stalked," Pippin added.

Muttering something about over-grown Tooks and Brandybucks, Frodo snatched his pencil back with lightning speed. "Ha!" he said. He looked at Merry, then to his other side, at Pippin. The frustration writ across his too-thin face faded into chagrin. "Have I been driving you mad?"

Pippin shrugged. "It's a short trip, for some hobbits." He raised an eyebrow at Merry, who snorted. "But yes."

"Honestly, Frodo, we've told you most of the good stories already," Merry said.

"But I don't want the good stories," Frodo said in a low voice. "I want _all_ the stories, good and bad. And I didn't want to ask you - either of you - outright, for fear of bringing you pain." He slid the pencil into its narrow pocket and tucked the book away, sighing.

"Frodo." Pippin touched his arm. Frodo looked up and saw the glance that he and Merry exchanged, then Pippin's disconcerting gaze was fixed on him again - looking down from his new height, even seated, and green as grass, and sharp as a sword. "Let's go."

Merry nodded. "The feast has run its course. Let's go to mine and Pippin's room and you can ask whatever you wish."

Excuses were made, farewells were taken, and the three hobbits slipped away. Sam had already gone to his bed; feasts such as this one still flustered him, and he generally retired early.

Merry and Pippin had shared a room since the return from Cormallen, as they had shared a tent in that encampment. "The beds are too big," Pippin had said. "I need Merry there to take up some room." Frodo had just nodded; he and Sam had separate bedrooms, off the receiving room of their suite, but often as not he crept into Sam's room, just to stave off the nightmares; other nights he woke to find Sam dozing in their shared parlour, and he tugged him along to sleep in his (too-large) bed.

Merry and Pippin's airy room was cool and pleasant now, the late spring night almost as warm as summer. Frodo sat on a comfortable couch as Merry and Pippin stirred the banked fire to life and lit a few sconces, stretching onto their toes to reach the wicks of the oil lamps. Frodo set his book out on a table, glanced at the fine inlaid surface of the tabletop and then looked closer, picking up an object that stood there. He turned it in his hands. "This is lovely," he said.

Pippin agreed. "Faramir gave it me," he said. "It was Boromir's once, he said." Frodo nodded. The carving was heavy in his hand - shining black wood, a toy warrior carved from ebon, perhaps, smoothed by oil and touch until the details of face and shield crest were lost, the little sword erect and fierce as the worn face was not, gesturing toward some childhood enemy. He ran his thumb over the figure and set it gently back in place. Merry and Pippin settled, Pippin beside him and Merry in a comfortable chair to his left.

"What do you want to know, now, cousin?" Merry propped his head on his hand and looked at him.

"I -" Frodo reached for his book, opened it and sat staring at a blank page. He lifted his eyes to Merry, then Pippin. "At the beginning, if I could. Above Rauros, that day."

Merry's face went still. "You'll have to ask Pippin, then. I got hit on the head -" he lifted his fringe to show the mark, though Frodo had seen it before, of course. "My memories of that day, and the ones just after, are..." He shrugged. "Not clear."

Something flickered between his two cousins, then, quick and unspoken - query and reply, perhaps, too subtle for Frodo to catch. They did that, sometimes - always had, and it was easier now than it had ever been, a talent honed by the past year, he thought. Pippin nodded, though, and began to speak.

"When everyone realized you weren't with us, it seemed a madness came over us. Merry and I ran like halfwits into the woods, calling for you..."

~*~*~*~

Frodo was gone to his room; he had asked question after question, and Pippin and then Merry had answered as honestly and fully as they could; all three hobbits had cried a bit, and all had laughed quite a lot.

"Come to bed," Merry said. He sat tailor-fashion upon the counterpane.

Pippin stayed where he was on the couch. "Why did you lie to Frodo?" He did not sound angry, only curious.

"About what?" But Merry knew; Pippin raised one sardonic eyebrow at him. "Oh, Pip. Come to bed."

Pippin stood and stretched; a few minutes later he was dressed in his nightshirt and sliding under the covers. Merry lay beside him, head turned away, and Pippin reached for his hand, twining his fingers in Merry's unresisting ones beneath the quilt. "So will you tell me now?"

Merry did not look at him. "Do you know what I thought when I woke up, that day on the plains?" He swallowed. "Well. What did _you_ think?"

Pippin rubbed his thumb over Merry's. Merry's right hand was almost always cold, these days. Pippin usually slept this way, trying to warm the terrible chill. Merry said it did not pain him much, but he did not protest Pippin's attempts, either.

"I was so worried," Pippin said slowly. "I didn't see you fall - I remember seeing Boromir, leaning against a tree... He was pulling an arrow from his corselet. Then. Ah, then I fell, I suppose - one of the goblins hit my head, or perhaps I fell and hit it, I don't know." Merry nodded, still looking away. Pippin had said all this to Frodo. "When I woke up, you were so still, and I thought at first it was a bad dream, but it wasn't. I hurt too much to be dreaming," he said with a small laugh. "But you were breathing, I could see that." Pippin drew in a slow breath, and finally Merry rolled his head on the pillow to look at him. "I had got my hands free, you know. And as we were being carried I kept thinking of Strider, all unbidden."

"Such a Took," Merry murmured, a little smile on his face, and Pippin grimaced a little.

"Much good has it done me," he said.

"It did then," Merry pointed out. "'Queer as a Took, sees clear as a Took,'" he lilted softly, a Tuckborough saying.

"You're half Took yourself, as if I needed to remind you," Pippin said.

"Half the folk of the Marish will never let me forget it."

"And half the folk in the Tookland will remind you if they lapse, by some strange chance." Pippin grinned, then drew a deep breath. "Anyway. So I was picturing Strider, and wishing to be set upon my own two feet, so as perhaps to leave a footprint for him among all those trampling boots. Also it was a wee bit uncomfortable, the way they were carrying us. Just as well you weren't awake for much of that."

"Then what?" Merry knew the tale, of course, but had never heard Pippin speak of it so easily as he did tonight.

Pippin shifted onto his side to look at Merry solemnly. "Meriadoc. You know all this. And if you did not, you heard me speak it to Frodo once already, and you still have not told me why you lied to him. I know perfectly well that you remember that day by Rauros, and the days that fell after. What are you hiding?"

Merry stared back at him for a long moment, and then closed his eyes. A breath of cool air wafted through the room from the high, narrow windows, and the curtains stirred in it. He shivered, and Pippin drew the coverlet higher over them both, drew Merry's hand into both of his and to his chest, chafing it.

"When Uglúk first woke me, I could not think at all," he said quietly. "I had been dreaming, I think, nightmares where everything in my life that had been good was made bad. Memories of you, and Frodo and Sam, all our companions - even memories of the Shire - were twisted about in my head to ugliness and evil."

"Oh, Merry." Pippin drew Merry's cold hand up and kissed it once.

"Then I woke up and all I felt was pain - something was burning me, my head."

"It was that orc medicine," Pippin nodded. "You made a sound, and you struggled so hard Uglúk had to pin you down--you were strong, Merry, even hurt. And him an Uruk-hai and all."

Merry smiled a little. "Then they poured that orc-draught down my throat, and made me stand. I felt awful but I was determined they shouldn't see it, and the first thing I saw after that nasty goblin was your face."

"And you made a jest about when we'd be having breakfast," Pippin said. "So unfair that they call me the fool, out of the two of us."

Merry's smile stretched, grew brittle. "The more fools they," he murmured.

"Merry." Pippin bent his head down, puffed warmth onto Merry's fingers. "Tell me."

"I'd thought you were dead, Pippin." His voice was barely a whisper, and he shuddered all over. "I'd seen you fall, seen the orcs pluck you up. Then the dreams, and it seemed so true. And things were so awful when I woke that I - I -" His voice broke, he struggled to breathe.

"Oh, Mer." Pippin pulled him close, tucked Merry's curly head under his chin and stroked his back over and over. "Shhh. Take your time. It's over now, you know. Tell me when you can."

Merry shook in his arms, and Pippin felt hot tears dampen his shirtfront, though Merry was almost silent. Finally he sniffed and his breathing steadied. Pippin groped blindly behind himself for a handkerchief; they kept a stack on the night table all the time these days. He tucked the square of linen into Merry's hand and waited while his cousin wiped nose and eyes.

"Better?" Pippin accepted the cloth and dropped it beside the bed without looking to see where it fell.

"Yuh." Merry yawned so wide his jaw cracked; he sniffed again and pushed his head back into the angle of Pippin's neck, curling against him. "Do you want me to finish?" he asked sleepily.

Pippin stroked his back. "If you can," he said.

Merry's voice was exhausted and dull, almost matter-of-fact. "When I woke up and saw where I was... I hoped you were dead, Pippin."

Pippin's belly lurched sympathetically and he gathered Merry even closer. "Oh. Merry." He squeezed his eyes closed, feeling his nose itch with tears. "Oh, Merry."

Merry's hand clenched into Pippin's shirtfront, but his voice remained low and even. "When I saw you, I was so ashamed - ashamed that you'd followed me into such straits, such peril. Ashamed that I'd let us both be captured."

Pippin bit his lip and squeezed Merry ungently. "Meriadoc Brandybuck."

"And then later, when we'd both come alive through it all, I was ashamed all over again, for wishing you dead. So stupid - such an awful thing to hope for." Merry's forehead pushed against Pippin's narrow chest.

"Cousin." Pippin said it on a frustrated sigh.

The frustration was so unexpected that Merry lifted his head, focusing clouded grey eyes on Pippin with an effort. "What?"

Pippin wriggled down until he lay nose to nose with his cousin. "You really are a fool, you know?"

"Yes. I do know it." Merry's mouth twisted bitterly as he tried to move away; Pippin's fists wound into his nightshirt and held him firmly in place.

"Oh, no you don't. You listen to me." Pippin's gaze bored into him. "You are not a fool because you care about me. You are a fool because you persist in, firstly, thinking I would be better off back home in the Shire - which you don't know. None of us know how folk have fared there, do we now?" Merry's eyes were wide now, almost frightened; he nodded almost imperceptibly. "Secondly, you persist in thinking you are responsible for every mishap that befalls me, from skinned knees to being kidnapped by orcs." Merry opened his mouth to protest this, but Pippin glared so fiercely he shut it again.

"Thirdly, you persist in being ashamed of the wrong _things._ You didn't wish me dead because I had nicked the last of your pipeweed or changed your sugar for salt in the kitchen - both offenses which should be punishable by death if you listen to Freddy Bolger." Merry didn't smile, and neither did Pippin, but his expression softened. "You wished me out of the, the situation because you couldn't bear to see me hurt, Merry. The only way out that you could see was death, so you wished that for me. It was not a shameful desire." He kissed Merry lightly on the nose. "It was generous. Muddled, yes, but generous. And the muddle came as much from this -" he tapped the brown scar on Merry's forehead gently - "as anything else." He lay his arm back over Merry's shoulder and gazed at him for a time. "Do you believe me?"

Merry returned his regard solemnly. Finally he nodded, just barely.

"All right, then." Pippin closed his eyes wearily. "Fool of a Brandybuck," he muttered.

Merry laughed, a choked little noise. "Yes." He sighed, long and deep, and then kissed Pippin's cheek. "I am at that."

"Let's talk about it in the morning, hmm?" Pippin smiled just a little.

Merry let his lids sag shut. "Along with the time you changed Freddy's sugar for salt."

Pippin giggled quietly, eyes still firmly closed. "We won't discuss the state of your pipeweed supply."

Merry opened one eye suspiciously. "Thieving little Took." He exhaled and closed his eye again. "You're lucky I know where you keep your pouch."

"G'night, Merry."

"G'night, Pippin."

They slept.

 

~_ end _~ 


End file.
